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CREATEDB(1) PostgreSQL 9.2.21 Documentation CREATEDB(1)
NAME
createdb - create a new PostgreSQL database
SYNOPSIS
createdb [connection-option...] [option...] [dbname [description]]
DESCRIPTION
createdb creates a new PostgreSQL database.
Normally, the database user who executes this command becomes the owner
of the new database. However, a different owner can be specified via
the -O option, if the executing user has appropriate privileges.
createdb is a wrapper around the SQL command CREATE DATABASE
(CREATE_DATABASE(7)). There is no effective difference between creating
databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the
server.
OPTIONS
createdb accepts the following command-line arguments:
dbname
Specifies the name of the database to be created. The name must be
unique among all PostgreSQL databases in this cluster. The default
is to create a database with the same name as the current system
user.
description
Specifies a comment to be associated with the newly created
database.
-D tablespace, --tablespace=tablespace
Specifies the default tablespace for the database. (This name is
processed as a double-quoted identifier.)
-e, --echo
Echo the commands that createdb generates and sends to the server.
-E encoding, --encoding=encoding
Specifies the character encoding scheme to be used in this
database. The character sets supported by the PostgreSQL server are
described in Section 22.3.1, "Supported Character Sets", in the
documentation.
-l locale, --locale=locale
Specifies the locale to be used in this database. This is
equivalent to specifying both --lc-collate and --lc-ctype.
--lc-collate=locale
Specifies the LC_COLLATE setting to be used in this database.
--lc-ctype=locale
Specifies the LC_CTYPE setting to be used in this database.
-O owner, --owner=owner
Specifies the database user who will own the new database. (This
name is processed as a double-quoted identifier.)
-T template, --template=template
Specifies the template database from which to build this database.
(This name is processed as a double-quoted identifier.)
-V, --version
Print the createdb version and exit.
-?, --help
Show help about createdb command line arguments, and exit.
The options -D, -l, -E, -O, and -T correspond to options of the
underlying SQL command CREATE DATABASE (CREATE_DATABASE(7)); see there
for more information about them.
createdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for
connection parameters:
-h host, --host=host
Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is
running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the
directory for the Unix domain socket.
-p port, --port=port
Specifies the TCP port or the local Unix domain socket file
extension on which the server is listening for connections.
-U username, --username=username
User name to connect as.
-w, --no-password
Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password
authentication and a password is not available by other means such
as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This option
can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to
enter a password.
-W, --password
Force createdb to prompt for a password before connecting to a
database.
This option is never essential, since createdb will automatically
prompt for a password if the server demands password
authentication. However, createdb will waste a connection attempt
finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is
worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.
--maintenance-db=dbname
Specifies the name of the database to connect to when creating the
new database. If not specified, the postgres database will be used;
if that does not exist (or if it is the name of the new database
being created), template1 will be used.
ENVIRONMENT
PGDATABASE
If set, the name of the database to create, unless overridden on
the command line.
PGHOST, PGPORT, PGUSER
Default connection parameters. PGUSER also determines the name of
the database to create, if it is not specified on the command line
or by PGDATABASE.
This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the
environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.14,
"Environment Variables", in the documentation).
DIAGNOSTICS
In case of difficulty, see CREATE DATABASE (CREATE_DATABASE(7)) and
psql(1) for discussions of potential problems and error messages. The
database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any default
connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq
front-end library will apply.
EXAMPLES
To create the database demo using the default database server:
$ createdb demo
To create the database demo using the server on host eden, port 5000,
using the LATIN1 encoding scheme with a look at the underlying command:
$ createdb -p 5000 -h eden -E LATIN1 -e demo
CREATE DATABASE demo ENCODING 'LATIN1';
SEE ALSO
dropdb(1), CREATE DATABASE (CREATE_DATABASE(7))
PostgreSQL 9.2.21 2017-05-08 CREATEDB(1)